GLEANINGS Dialogue on Jewish Education from The Davidson School S U M M E R 2 0 1 7

V O L U M E 4 , I S S U E 2

The Promise of Jewish Early Childhood Education Jewish early childhood education is not only an entry point into Jewish learning for young children. Often, it also becomes a reentry point for parents: many adults disenchanted by Jewish life in their own youth (or simply lacking exposure to it) take a renewed interest in pursuing Jewish life as a family as their children are invited in through their school programs.

This potential opportunity for the Jewish community is why we at the Leadership Commons are so invested in Jewish early childhood education. In this Gleanings, we explore how Jewish early childhood can ignite the fire of Jewish learning for children

Jewish Early Childhood Education Leadership Institute

Day School Leadership Training Institute

Jewish Experiential Leadership Institute

The Legacy Heritage Instructional Leadership Institute

Education projects at The Davidson School are currently funded by Alan B. Slifka Foundation, The AVI CHAI Foundation, Covenant Foundation, The Crown Family, Jim Joseph Foundation, UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and the William Davidson Foundation, as well as by endowments established for the Melton Center and the Mandell Berman Fund for Action Research and Evaluation.

The William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education is the largest multidenominational school of Jewish education in North America, granting master’s and doctoral degrees and providing professional development to educators currently in the field. Drawing upon cutting-edge thinking in both Jewish and general education, its pedagogy emphasizes experiential education, is informed by best practices and new developments in teaching, and engenders leadership in a variety of educational settings. Learn more at www.jtsa.edu/davidson.

THE LEADERSHIP COMMONS The Leadership Commons is a project of The Davidson School dedicated to building educational leadership that works together to create a vibrant Jewish future.• Leadership Institutes• Research and Design

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and their families. As a father of two young children, I know and feel personally the power of Jewish early childhood learning in propelling our community to an ever stronger future.

In our selection of articles, we first explore the appeal and potential of Jewish early childhood education, for young children and for their families. We ask: How do we engage families and develop a meaningful journey for them? How can the field market itself better? We follow these questions with an inspiring selection of articles demonstrating success and innovation across the country, from Chicago to San Francisco to Pittsburgh to Denver. What are these communities doing so well, and what can we learn from their success? We are pleased that such preeminent thought leaders and practitioners of Jewish early childhood education as Shellie Dickstein, Carolyn Linder, and Anna Hartman, to name a few, are engaging in this dialogue with us. We invite you, too, to join the conversation; email your thoughts to us at gleanings@jtsa.edu.

Shalom,

Mark S. Young, Managing Director, the Leadership Commons

CONTENTS

Heschel at the Gan: How Jewish Early Childhood Education Ignites the Potential of the Whole Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3SONYA SHOPTAUGH AND DR. BILL ROBINSON

And You Shall Teach Them Unto Your Children: Listening and Learning from Parents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5SHELLIE DICKSTEIN

A Relational Approach to Building Local Leadership in Jewish Early Childhood Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7ANNA HARTMAN

Success in San Francisco: The Impact of Jewish Resource Specialists in Jewish Early Childhood Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10DENISE MOYES-SCHNUR

An Opportunity Not to Be Missed: Marketing Jewish Early Childhood Education to Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11LISA FARBER MILLER

The Growth of Jewish Early Childhood Education in the City of Bridges. . . . . . . . . . 14CAROLYN LINDER

The Sustaining Nature of Jewish Early Childhood Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16LYNDALL MILLER

Shellie DicksteinBill Robinson / Sonya ShoptaughDenise Moyes SchurAnna HarmanLisa Farber MillerLyndall Miller

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Heschel at the Gan: How Jewish Early Childhood Education Ignites the Potential of the Whole FamilySONYA SHOPTAUGH AND DR. BILL ROBINSON

“The essence of teaching is to have a dialogue with the child’s potential.” —Carla Rinaldi

“The essence of Jewish education is to have a dialogue with the whole family’s potential.” —The authors

ENVISION . . . children digging in the ground discovering worms and other bugs, and a conversation ensues. As a few children excitedly pick up some wiggling worms and start carrying them around the playground, other children begin wondering if is it okay to take the worms out of their home. Might they miss their mommy? The teacher joins them and explains enthusiastically that they are being like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King Jr.; as Heschel taught, they are responding ethically to the calling of the awesome world in which they live. Not coincidentally, a picture of these two ethical giants, walking together, adorns the classroom wall. Next week, following the continued interests of the children, the teachers support them as they explore how to build a playground for the worms, an offering from the children full of joy and desire for the well-being of the worms.

A month later, parents come to the school for a classroom meeting where teachers share the journey of the children’s project work through photos, videos, and conversations. In this meeting, the teachers offer a glimpse inside the ethical choices children are wrestling with as they design a playground for the worms. The parents become inspired and begin to think together more deeply about what it means for their children to live Jewish values in a robust and authentic way at school as well as at home. They begin working together to build a just community, centered in the school and serving the wider neighborhood.

Our children are not isolated individuals, experiencing life and learning on their own. They are social beings immersed in meaningful webs of relationship, of which the family is central and fundamental. Therefore, the nurturing of a vibrant life inspired and guided by Jewish values and practices—the outcome we all desire—requires young children to have a family actively engaged in Jewish learning and living.

CONSIDER THIS: “A child’s brain undergoes an amazing period of development from birth to three—producing more than a million neural connections each second. The development of the brain is influenced by many factors, including a child’s relationships, experiences and environment” (“Brain Development,” Zero to Three). Recognizing that humans have the greatest period of growth before the age of five years old brings into focus the crucial responsibility and vast opportunity we have in Jewish early childhood education. From the first breath of life, children are asking questions, searching for the meaning of the world around them and within them, developing theories of how things work and then testing out their ideas . . . children are the world’s first researchers in their lifelong quest to develop their potential.

SONYA SHOPTAUGH

BILL ROBINSON

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NOW IMAGINE THIS: A family experiencing the growth of their first child undergoes an amazing period of development during the first three years. They are discovering and—inscribing in the life of the family—the values, rituals, and practices that will determine the shape of the family for decades to come. We need to recognize that as young adults get married and begin to raise children, marking the most formative moment in their adult lives, we are presented with the crucial responsibility and vast opportunity we have in Jewish early childhood education. Even before birth, parents are asking questions, searching for the meaning of the world around them and within them, developing ideas about the family they want to be, testing them out and seeking guidance from others on this same journey. If we focus on this critical time, we find that families with young children reveal the relevance of Jewish values, rituals, and practices for building thriving families in contemporary society.

How we regard young children—our beliefs about who they are, what rights they have, what place they hold in society—influences the kinds of environments and interactions we have with them, which then has an impact on their self-concept and the possibilities of who they can become. Judaism offers us distinct core values about what it means to be human, including the fundamental belief we are all born b’tzelem elohim (created in the image of God.) As Rabbi Yitz Greenberg taught, tzelem elohim means that each soul is born unique, of infinite value, and equal to all other souls. If we believe each person is created in the image of God, many questions arise.

What does it require of us as educators when we view all children as having unique needs and capabilities? What kind of educational spaces do we need to nurture children who have infinite value? What actions must we take when we recognize the rights of all children as being equal?

Now imagine seeing each family as being unique, equal, and having infinite value. What does it require of all of us to invest in the growth of these infinitely valuable families? What educational spaces do we need in order to welcome families with unique ways of being Jewish and being families? What actions do we need to take for all families to matter in our understanding of equality?

In addition to the story that began this article, here are two more vignettes that inspire us with the possibilities of emergent and deep Jewish learning for children and families:

ENVISION . . . one day the two-year-old children decide to decorate a chair in their classroom. They reserve this chair for special times. When a guest arrives, he is invited to have a seat on the special chair. As part of being welcomed into the classroom, visitors are made to feel at home. When a child has a birthday, she becomes the person of honor who gets to sit on the chair. The teachers document this ongoing experience by photographing the children’s engagement with each other and the chair, writing down the conversations taking place and making note of how the toddlers are designing these significant moments together. At the end of the week, when the parents join their children for the afternoon, they see and read about their children’s creation of sacred time and space. The teachers then engage the parents in a conversation about creating sacred moments in the lives of their families. Through meaningful dialogue, families and educators engage in exploring how spaces and times at home can become more sacred. Ideas range from the reading of books and the saying of the Sh’ma at bedtime, to the lighting of candles and blessing of the children one Shabbat, to the possibility of creating a special chair at home for those moments when one needs to have a place to sit when the sacred is recognized.

ENVISION . . . walking in to the hallway of the early childhood center surrounded by photographs of the center’s families on various vacations. In one picture, a family is visiting the grandparents in Florida and the smiles on everyone’s faces show the depth of love that is felt. In another, children miraculously float on the Dead Sea during a trip to Israel. The children have toured these pictures and heard parents tell stories about

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their travels and the wonderful time they had rediscovering themselves as a dynamic, silly, loving family, away from the demands of work and school. At the end of the hallway, the children have created a collage of drawings that tell the story of Abraham and Sarah as they journeyed lekh lekha (literally, go to yourself).

In the stories we have written about ourselves and our journeys throughout the generations, we understand we have an immense potential to create that which is new, to do whatever is desired or needed, and to love regardless of any circumstance. Our schools can carry on the dynamism in our tradition if they are based on a pedagogy of relationships, deep listening, and a regard for one another that facilitate an open and democratic style of learning for children and adults alike. It is within our power to ensure a deeper level of co-participation, as children, parents, and educators are involved in a process of learning—the vital action of being alive and making meaning. Such is the power and importance of Jewish learning that is now happening at a growing number of Jewish early childhood centers across the country.

Dr. Bill Robinson is the dean of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education of The Jewish Theological Seminary.

Sonya Shoptaugh is the founder and director of Creative Childhood. She works with major Jewish organizations focusing on constructivist Jewish early childhood education.

And You Shall Teach Them Unto Your Children: Listening and Learning from Parents SHELLIE DICKSTEIN

V’shinantam L’vaneha—And you shall teach them unto your children. Our tradition teaches that Jewish parents should transmit Judaism to their children, but what do we really understand about how the majority of progressive Jewish parents of young children see that role today?

With this question in mind, the Jewish Education Project, the central agency for Jewish education serving New York City, Long Island, and Westchester, wanted to understand how parents make decisions to participate in activities with their youngest children. With the burgeoning of secular early enrichment classes, such as parent-child music classes for children ages 0–2, we wanted to understand what parents value about these programs, how they perceive Jewish early enrichment experiences, and what goes into their decisions to join both. In spring 2016, the Jewish Education Project, with funding from UJA-Federation of New York, conducted a scan of Jewish and secular early enrichment programs across New York. We also conducted a series of focus groups with parents of children ages 0–2 in Long Island and Manhattan. All the parents had participated in secular enrichment programs (such as Music Together, Gymboree, Music for Aardvarks, etc.) and were raising their children to identify as Jews, but most were not connected to any Jewish institution or organization. This study revealed several insights into how they see their role as Jewish parents and about their decision to participate in, and their understanding, of Jewish engagement and learning at this earliest stage.

First, it is clear from our research that parents believe that enrolling their children in secular early enrichment programs is an integral part of being a good parent. The decision to participate is not debated. The only

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decisions to be made are about budget and the logistics of where and when to participate. However, when we asked about participating in similar types of Jewish programs, we received very different responses that often indicated more angst:

“Right now I do these classes by myself with my daughter, but if it were something like this [Jewish class], I would make my husband come with us. It would be a family class with the three of us.”

“My husband’s biggest fear from all of these classes would be that he would go and he would be judged. Or people would only speak about keeping kosher at home or their Shabbat dinners and we don’t do that. I think everyone in the room probably, or I will speak for myself, gets judged enough as parent. To bring a religion into it, that can be super stressful.”

“I kind of want to learn and I’ve realized I haven’t been the greatest Jew, but just don’t make me do it. I want to—just don’t force me.”

This is in part good news as parents see Jewish programs as a family affair. However, we see that parents today often fear that they or their spouse will be judged. Parents today are inundated with parenting advice from multiple sources: friends, family, Facebook, parenting blogs, and hundreds of websites, causing much insecurity. Offering them a safe haven from all judgment is essential.

Many parents also expressed that though they understood the benefits of secular programs—making their children happy and teaching them new skills—they didn’t see the clear value of Jewish content in programs for their young children. In addition, when they spoke about exposing their children to Jewish life, it was mostly in terms of imagining traditional Jewish learning that happens in more formal settings outside the home, such as early childhood centers, and at a later stage, such as in Hebrew school. Some did understand an enculturation process that can happen early within the family, but most expressed Judaism as something that is only accessible once it can be understood or talked about:

“I think it comes out as a cultural thing in family get-togethers. Kids are like sponges, so even though they don’t really pick it up, they do on some level. I try to keep it as a joy instead of a strict religious thing because then it starts to feel like a burden. It doesn’t really have much significance other than we’re just enjoying family life. When they get older of course I’m definitely going to talk to them about it. I’m not going to stress over it.”

“It doesn’t seem like it would be for small children though. Although we do want to expose our small children it seems it could be more targeted towards three and above where they can actually participate in some small way. I know that four- year-olds would really love this.”

“My daughter is only one and I plan on raising her Jewish and she will go to Hebrew school. But at this age I don’t think she’s old enough to understand and I don’t think under three years old they really are. Maybe next year I’ll feel different when she is two but at this age I don’t. But at one-and-a-half, I don’t really see the need yet. But I will once she’s older, of course.”

Our study suggests several findings that are important to keep in mind when understanding a parent’s role in making decisions to join Jewish experiences:

1) It carries emotional weight: it affects family dynamics and decisions, perhaps due to the fear of being judged and the perceived commitment associated with formal learning that parents associate with Jewish programs.

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2) Most parents in this study want to expose their children to cultural elements of Judaism, not necessarily the more religious or ritualistic elements.

3) Parents explained that while Judaism isn’t always at the top of their minds at this life stage, they do think about it—but mostly related to the future.

4) Since their children are so young, and perhaps because parents did not have similar Jewish experiences when they were the same age, it is sometimes impossible for parents to understand or articulate a clear benefit from engaging in Jewish activities right now. They do understand how secular aspects of early enrichment experiences are valuable for their youngest children, but not Jewish ones.

Ultimately, parents want to see their children happy and developing the physical, emotional, and social skills that they need to thrive. As a result, those of us trying to engage families at this stage struggle to find the right formula for Jewish content. Listening to the voices of parents gives us important guidelines to consider. The most important: being sure to offer and articulate clear benefits of Jewish programs that resonate with the life skills that families perceive are important for their children and themselves. If we can provide happiness and skill development while parents and children are engaged in the earliest Jewish early childhood experiences based on any of our cultural elements—song, art, cooking, movement or dance—perhaps this will finally inspire V’shinantam L’vaneha (and you shall teach them unto your children).

Shellie Dickstein is managing director of Early Childhood and Family Engagement for the Jewish Education Project. Shellie leads a team to facilitate networks and change initiatives that spark and spread innovative approaches and new models in early childhood education and early family engagement. She has facilitated workshops and seminars on family education and engagement nationally and internationally and as adjunct faculty for HUC-JIR in New York. Shellie has written and contributed to various articles, blogs and publications on Jewish family education, including Jewish Family Education: A Casebook for the Twenty-First Century, published by Torah Aurah.

A Relational Approach to Building Local Leadership in Jewish Early Childhood Education ANNA HARTMAN

מדוע אתה יושב לבדך… לא-טוב הדברWhy do you sit alone? . . . It is not good [to do so].—Exodus 18:14, 17

Poor Moses. The guy sure had a way of making leadership look isolating. You know you have a problem when your in-laws admonish you to your face, calling your leadership style “lo tov” (Exodus 18:17). Ouch.

Today’s early childhood leaders know what Yitro knew—that going it alone is lo tov for so many reasons. We have all seen how leading alone can be a recipe for burnout and an obstacle to succession planning. We

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know it is anathema to Jewish and progressive pedagogical ideals about learning from and with others. And yet it is neither obvious nor simple to imagine how to begin leading differently.

In recent years, Chicago Jewish early childhood leaders (directors, lay people, and educators) have been gathering together to seek knowledge, support, and understanding. Their work has addressed several needs in our system: cultivating a shared sense of responsibility for each early childhood center, identifying and nurturing future leaders, helping leaders develop non-profit management skills, retaining directors through the challenges of leading a family center, developing an inspired vision for excellence in teaching and learning, and recruiting new teachers.

Already we are seeing an impact on individuals and schools. Remarkably, directors insist that this is an entirely new way of working for them; in their words I hear echoes of my favorite 1980s song: “Til now I always got by on my own; I never really cared until I met you.” Unsurprisingly, then, I regularly hear stories about how caring relationships with colleagues are pushing area leaders to try new practices and lifting them up when their efforts miss the mark.

Below I offer a few examples of the purposeful systems supporting leadership development across our 39 Jewish early childhood programs. Following these examples, I will share hopes and dreams for next steps in our ecosystem.

Chicago Early Engagement Leadership Initiative (CEELI). This cohort of 12 schools gathers regularly for professional development. Each school team is composed of a director, a teacher, and a lay person. Together the cohort focuses on strategic challenges and opportunities such as marketing, communication, and family engagement. The CEELI project director supports each team in reaching a goal the school sets for itself. Past goals have included developing a marketing plan, redesigning a website, integrating families into the host synagogue, developing new feedback mechanisms, engaging in visioning with staff, and aligning the preschool and supplemental school program. This year the initiative welcomed new schools to the cohort and began inviting additional community institutions to skill-building boot camps to learn how to more effectively engage young families. CEELI is the brainchild of the Union for Reform Judaism and includes participation from a wide variety of schools.

The Jewish Early Childhood Leadership Institute (JECELI). JECELI brings leaders in area schools together regularly for Jewish learning, community building, professional development in Jewish constructivist and experiential education, and leadership development. Through communal study with local and national experts, these 17 participants are building the Jewish knowledge, confidence, and skills to lead Jewish programs. Essential to this program are four incredibly experienced mentors who attend the sessions, conduct small group reflection sessions with their mentees, and visit and guide mentees on-site on a regular basis. Participants develop and share final projects that reveal the pedagogical leadership they have been bringing back to their schools. JECELI is a joint initiative of the Leadership Commons, part of The Davidson School of The Jewish Theological Seminary, and the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute for Religion.

Director’s Council. In Chicago there is a long-standing group of seven schools whose directors meet monthly, sharing dilemmas of practice and working together to offer thoughtful feedback and engender reflection. This group is facilitated by a clinical social worker who is also a child development specialist.

Study travel is a new element in our community, in which school teams—each composed of a leader and two teachers—study cutting-edge practices in early childhood education, delve into the common texts and ideals that bind Jewish schools, travel to visit leading centers and learn from experts, and reflect together on new approaches and practices they have begun employing in their programs. This year 12 schools

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participated—half of them studying together in the fall and then visiting Los Angeles to tour early childhood programs and study progressive pedagogy, and the other half meeting monthly throughout the year and studying together in Reggio Emilia, Italy, in the spring.

Beginning this summer, the Chicago Teachers Project: A Laboratory for Early Childhood Education, funded by the Covenant Foundation, will onboard a cohort of 12 individuals who have recently been recruited to pursue Jewish early childhood education as a career. Under the guidance of local education leaders, these new educators will meet for a summer retreat and a summer intensive, study and reflect together three times a month, complete a certificate in Progressive Education from the Erikson Institute, and work twice a month with skilled mentor teachers from Jewish schools across the community. These educators will learn the art of leading a classroom community. As part of the same initiative, three tiers of educators will grow in their own leadership-12 co-teachers will assist in onboarding these new teachers and will benefit from an enhanced budget for their own professional development, 12 mentor teachers will learn about the art of mentoring and receive a stipend for their work, and six school directors will travel together to the Boulder Journey School to reimagine their own schools as laboratories for excellence in teaching.

In an effort to enhance coordination between networks and among participants, our Federation, the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago (JUF), has initiated a strategic planning process for Jewish early childhood education, incorporating the voices of parents, teachers, and leaders across the city and the country. Chicago’s new strategic plan boldly outlines strategies and tactics for strengthening the pipeline of teachers and leaders, advancing a culture of excellence in our schools, and expanding accessibility for families.

Central to carrying out this plan is the possibility of collective impact. Thus the plan calls for the development of a collaborative, to be housed at JUF, that will not only do the vital work of focusing myriad communal initiatives around shared outcomes, but will also have the power to address the seemingly intractable issues that have and will continue to plague early childhood education—inadequate resources for schools to properly invest in teacher compensation and professional development, and barriers to enrollment such as limited hours, scarcity of infant care, and unaffordable tuition.

To properly embolden our community as we take next steps, I look to counter Moses’s lonely leadership (lo tov) with Psalm 133’s virtue of togetherness (hinei mah tov, or “here is what is good”) and Genesis’s rife praise (ki tov) for the work of creation. Taken together, it seems that doing good work will require leading and creating—together—in wholly new ways. I believe that with the stability, relationships, and confidence being nurtured through our various leadership networks; continued encouragement and support from funders; and generous relationships with leaders around the country, we have a chance at Moses’s happy ending.

As Exodus 18 concludes, Yitro tells Moses that when he will develop a system of shared communal leadership, the whole of the people will reach the proper place in peace (18:23). May it be so.

Anna Hartman is the director of Early Childhood Excellence at the Community Foundation for Jewish Education of the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago. She is also the director of the Paradigm Project.

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Success in San Francisco: The Impact of Jewish Resource Specialists in Jewish Early Childhood EducationDENISE MOYES-SCHNUR

Imagine—what would it be like to have a child in a program that provided an educator who was dedicated to helping teachers deepen their reflective practice as well as their Jewish knowledge? And, what if this person worked as a concierge to engage young families in Jewish life in the broader community?

Actually, imagination is not necessary. Six years ago, the Early Childhood and Family Engagement Initiative (ECFE) in San Francisco filled this position for Jewish preschools. With generous funding from the Jim Joseph Foundation and the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, the San Francisco Early Childhood Initiative began the Jewish Resource Specialist (JRS) program.

The program launched with five pilot sites and quickly became ECFE’s most recognized program. Each of these five sites had a designated classroom teacher who worked ten additional hours at their site with the dual goals of deepening Jewish learning and engaging families in Jewish life. The teachers were given a coach who supported their work and met with them each month. They also attended a retreat, six meetings of a JRS community of practice, and a day of learning at the end of each school year. This professional development helped to strengthen the work of the JRS at their schools, as each JRS brought their learning from these days back to their programs. Additionally, each preschool program also received professional development funding for their teachers to deepen their own Jewish learning programming and funding for Jewish parent and family programs.

What have been the results? Our program impact has been profound. On the leadership level, directors have discovered a partner in their JRS who helps them maintain a high quality of Judaic learning and programming while keeping the education at their school reflective of current practice. The teachers in JRS preschools approach the JRS in their programs with questions for peer-to-peer advice and support—a peer, not a supervisor. On the school level, the JRS program supports work on the school’s vision, each system developing their own goals in the areas of Jewish learning and engaging families in Jewish life. We know that embedded professional development works best, and the JRS system leverages that knowledge to move each school forward.

On the parent level, there are many examples of how these specialists have enabled teachers to articulate the work that they do in the classroom, and to share it with families in their care:

• hahnasat orhim (welcoming guests), where four-year-old children invited parents to an evening “restaurant” that the children had created;

• sharing a mishnah, where three-year-olds taught parents about the meaning of the statement: “Do not look at the jug, but rather what is inside it”;

• a “Sh’ma” walk in the Oakland Hills, during which families recited the Sh’ma, talked about its meaning, and walked through the woods with a new understanding of what Sh’ma (listen) implies.

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Each of these experiences has actively involved parents in learning with the children.

In addition to engaging with their children in Jewish programming that is meaningful to them, connections with other parents are fostered, building a Jewish community. Switching from a “parent education” model to a “parent engagement” model is a subtle change, but one that moves from a deficit model to one that is strength-based. The JRS actively works with the parents to ask them how and where they like to learn, to engage them in the kinds of activities that they enjoy, and to provide a Jewish lens for the learning at these family engagement times. They work with one or two “JRS parents” who help them create meaningful Jewish programming, again, emphasizing family friendships and connection to the Jewish community.

The ECFE’s second cohort just had their siyyum, their closing celebration. As this current cohort ends, the third cohort of the JRS will begin in the fall of 2017. In the words of a parent, “I just can’t imagine what our school would be like without the JRS program.”

Denise Moyes-Schnur is a Jewish early childhood educator, and has been in the field for over 40 years. She has worked in both local and national Jewish early childhood programs, (including JTS’s own first cohort of JECELI, where she was the mentor coordinator). Denise specializes in creating programming, coaching, and mentoring Jewish early childhood centers. She is the director of the Jewish Resource Specialist program, and in July will become the associate director at the Early Childhood and Family Engagement Initiative at the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation.

An Opportunity Not to Be Missed: Marketing Jewish Early Childhood Education to ParentsLISA FARBER MILLER

Parents who welcome a newborn into their family feel excitement, hope, fear—and, of course, love. During this special life moment, parents often look for support and guidance as they begin to make decisions about their child’s care, including the stressful task of determining the first place the child will spend time outside of the home. A variety of options are available, and we need to make Jewish early childhood education a more visible and desirable choice than it is today. That’s why we created BUILDing Jewish ECE, the first-of-its-kind national marketing and family engagement initiative for synagogues and Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) with early childhood centers.

For children, preschool years are a critical time in the development of cognition, personality, and identity—including religious identity. If we wait to engage the youngest members of our community, we lose out on being an integral part of their development. In addition, when children enjoy Jewish learning and rituals at school, we win: they bring them home and often introduce them to the entire family.

Therefore engaging families when children are between the ages of zero and five is critical. We can introduce families to Jewish life through Jewish early childhood education (ECE) centers that are welcoming, accessible, offer high-quality education for infants to five-year-olds, and present opportunities for parents to form meaningful friendships with each other. These ECE centers, often found at synagogues and JCCs, can be the first place where a family’s Jewish journey together begins.

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Jewish early childhood programs benefit children and their parents. We know that parents also choose Jewish preschools to meet other Jewish parents and to create their own community. Parents who have Jewish peer groups through their child’s ECE center are more likely to be actively engaged in Jewish life in the future. If they perceive an ECE program to be of high quality, they are more likely to listen and absorb when an educator engages them in Jewish activities and teaching.

As a result, it is critical that we market this sacred work effectively. Producing high-quality marketing materials and strategies must be a priority. Our families will then receive the message and respond—ideally by becoming part of an ECE center and its umbrella synagogue or JCC.

Successful Jewish ECE centers filled with families mean a brighter financial picture for the synagogues and JCCs that house them. Each new family enters the pipeline for new members and supporters. For example, in 2012, the Denver/Boulder Jewish communities commissioned the consulting firm EKS&H to conduct an economic study that revealed that the power of connecting early with families was not being realized because synagogues and JCCs did not have a proactive, systematic approach to marketing to families. The study, titled Economic Study of Jewish Early Childhood Education Centers in the Denver/Boulder Areas, found that when Jewish ECE centers in the area operated at best practice marketing standards, their congregations and JCCs’ aggregate revenues could increase $720,000 annually, an average of 11 percent. Most of the eight JCCs and congregations involved in the study were not cross-marketing the value of the synagogue and JCC and how together they met the needs of young families in addition to the benefits of their ECE center.

Shortly after that study, recognizing ECE nationally was still under-resourced and lacking a rich base of best marketing practices, the Denver-based Rose Community Foundation brought together the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), JCC Association (JCCA) and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) to launch BUILDing Jewish ECE, a two-year process that provided coaching and tools to effectively market for and respond to inquiries, increase enrollment, and enhance family engagement at nine Denver/Boulder ECE centers.

For the last three years, the participating ECE centers in Denver/Boulder have served as learning labs for the Jewish world, teaching the field how to build and maintain institutions that emphasize the highest quality of relationships with prospective and current families and, relatedly, have the highest-caliber customer retention systems.

By working closely with expert ECE and marketing coaches, ECE centers:

• completely changed how they conduct parent visits and how they track and follow up with potential parent customers to maximize enrollment conversion;

• developed their brands and created taglines to promote their educational philosophy and Jewish values;

• began using sophisticated lead-to-registration CRM software to enhance communication with parents and manage the inquiry process;

• learned from mystery shoppers about how to improve parent visits; and

• adopted “parent ambassador” programs to help with peer recruitment.

The ECE centers now understand their enrollment success is premised on strong relationships between families and centers, which begin at the first phone inquiry or meeting. The most effective centers learned that the parents’ first pre-enrollment school visit provides a critical opportunity to gain understanding of a family’s needs. That visit is the time for ECE centers to determine if the center is a good fit for the family—as opposed to trying to “sell” the center. Simultaneously, the director and staff must be able to demonstrate

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how the center provides high-quality Jewish early learning and discuss their basic competitive advantages—what makes them unique and special—in a crowded marketplace.

Additionally, the centers in BUILDing Jewish ECE broke down silos that existed previously between the ECE center and the synagogue or JCC. The ECE directors changed how they work with their executive directors, as both parties saw the opportunity and benefit of introducing ECE families to all that the community offers. Synagogue and JCC administrators were able to see the ECE centers nested within the larger organizations—often for the first time—because BUILDing Jewish ECE “spoke their language” of recruitment and marketing. This deepens the connection between ECE centers and the larger organization, ultimately making it more likely that ECE families will be engaged for the long term. One synagogue leader explained:

BUILDing Jewish ECE created a regular space for our new director to think through the big picture goals. It helped by requiring the team to include a member of the clergy, the president, and executive director—constituencies who, by default, think larger than the ECE center. We thought about our parent population in a new way. Consider that a family may have one child in the ECE center, one learning in the Hebrew school, and another in the bat mitzvah program. We now have an integrated approach, which provides a more cohesive engagement experience for all the families.

All of the participating ECE directors said the initiative increased their knowledge and skills in marketing, enrollment conversion, and family engagement. They also said that after implementing specific strategies they learned as part of the initiative, they saw positive changes in their ECE centers. Capacity utilization and enrollment increased.

Now, as this initiative concludes and we can document marked improvements in the participating ECE centers, Jewish ECE is poised to take another important step forward with the recent release by Rose Community Foundation of the Standards of Excellence for Jewish Community Centers and Synagogues with Early Childhood Education Centers: Guidelines for Exemplary Educational Practice and for Exemplary Marketing, Enrollment Conversion, Family Satisfaction and Retention, Integration of Center Families into JCCS and Synagogues (SOE).

After ten years of work and millions of dollars invested, the SOE is a compilation, a refinement, and a streamlined publication of ECE standards developed over multiple initiatives by expert evaluators and consultants who worked directly with ECE centers.

The SOE are presented as a workbook with clear guidelines to help Jewish ECE centers understand and document their accomplishments in both educational and marketing strategies, and to develop action plans for change. These centers need the best marketing and recruiting strategies and tools to reach all kinds of families, to respond effectively to inquiries, and to help those who inquire make the decision to enroll their child.

By offering the field a common language, as the SOE does, practitioners, consultants, and evaluators can more easily and consistently share best practices and discuss challenges. As a result, Jewish ECE centers will achieve even greater outcomes, and the entire Jewish community will benefit.

Lisa Farber Miller is senior program officer at Rose Community Foundation, which supported both BUILDing Jewish ECE and the Standards of Excellence. The SOE was developed as part of the Denver/Boulder ECE strategic plan, a partnership of JEWISHcolorado (formerly the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado), Colorado Agency for Jewish Education, Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Colorado, Rose Community Foundation, and other anonymous donors, designed to help the Denver and Boulder Jewish ECE centers.

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The Growth of Jewish Early Childhood Education in the City of BridgesCAROLYN LINDER

Visitors to Pittsburgh are often surprised to discover that our city is bursting with bridges, a total of 446 to be exact. We are officially the city with the most bridges in the world, with even more than Venice, Italy. For many residents, the bridges represent the city’s historic ties with industrial production, engineering, and steel. For Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, the bridges serve as a metaphor for our ongoing work in enhancing the quality and impact of Jewish early childhood education.

Our community’s path toward excellence in Jewish early childhood education is rooted in the fundamental belief that young children are strong, capable, and filled with an incredible sense of wonder. We strongly advocate that young children, alongside educators, should be co-constructors of their educational experiences. Our shared communal goals seek to inspire our educational community to create flexible, relationship-driven learning environments that foster creativity, celebrate each young child’s identity, and reflect each school’s unique values. We do not seek to set standards by means of achievement targets. We see these early learning years as an opportunity to foster critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration.

At the very core of any quality program is its staff. A quality early childhood education program supports its staff with opportunities to continue to study and grow in their field, as well as with adequate pay and benefits. Low compensation for early childhood education educators is a national problem, not just a Jewish one, and certainly not one that is unique to our community. Low wages and limited or no benefits for Jewish early childhood educators create a strong barrier for individuals entering the profession. The reality is that quality care is expensive because quality care requires people of ability and training, who must be paid adequately if they are to be attracted to this field of work. Through our ongoing commitment to improving the quality of education, to increasing meaningful opportunities for Jewish living and learning, to strengthening the ties between the early childhood education program and its host institution, to creating effective and targeted marketing strategies, we hope to begin to bridge the divide among compensation and retention of educators by helping to influence perceptions about Jewish early childhood education as an important long-term investment.

As a result of our commitments, a pilot project that started six years ago in three Pittsburgh Jewish early childhood education centers has now grown into an initiative at nine of our eleven programs. Our community’s path toward excellence has meaningfully engaged families who are raising young Jewish children and seeks to increase the number of those choosing to send their children to a Jewish early childhood education program. There are essential requirements for this work in order for it to be deep and authentic. These include synergy within each early childhood education program and its host institution, a significant financial investment by these groups as well as the larger community, and a tremendous commitment from all stakeholders.

We remain focused on interlocking strategies for the greatest impact by bridg-ing together key, but often siloed, aspects of this work. Last year, under the auspices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, nine directors from our community’s early childhood education programs worked together to create shared communal goals for excellence in Jewish early childhood education. These goals resulted

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in standards that articulate a deep commitment to examining and implementing the best practices of teaching and learning in a nurturing environment which provokes exploration, experimentation, problem-solving, negotiation, communication, and collaboration. We strive to create rich environments imbued with Jewish values where all young children learn, play, and grow together. Our collaborating directors then created rubrics by which these goals could be measured, allowing each center to assess its progress as it continues on its own plan for growth. We have intentionally chosen not to create or recreate an accreditation process, but rather to focus our efforts on an ongoing process that fosters a culture of reflection and continuous improvement.

This effort—the Early Childhood Education Rubric Program—identifies key elements across all of our nine programs and allows us to define standards that will guide even higher levels of excellence while maintaining and cultivating each program’s unique identity. Ultimately, our work will allow us to bridge together three core components that have emerged: quality early childhood education, engagement of families in meaningful Jewish living and learning experiences, and shared leadership. The level of collaboration among the diverse participating programs is unprecedented, and it underscores how dedicated each institution is to providing quality and collaborative education with high family participation through meaningful Jewish living and learning opportunities.

Following this yearlong revisionary process, the programs recently participated in a comprehensive baseline assessment measured against our shared communal goals. Conducted by our outside assessor, Dr. Roberta Goodman, the purpose of the assessment was to get a picture “at this time” of what each Jewish early childhood center looked like in relation to our shared communal goals. The leaders of each school can use this information as they determine logical next steps to further strengthen their programs. Over time, this process will allow the schools to see where and how they have grown. The candor of what was shared by each school through photo documentation, evidence gathering, observations, and interviews made this process authentic and powerful.

Each center then received an individual and detailed assessment report. With support provided by a consultant through the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, this information is enabling each school to build an individualized, multi-year growth plan. By participating in a cyclical, data-driven quality improvement process, each center is systematically and intentionally improving services and increasing positive outcomes for the young children and families it serves. Assessment, reflection, planning, and implementation are all part of a continuous cycle of improvement, a commitment of striving for excellence. Some programs are working comprehensively and simultaneously on many goals, while others are focusing their efforts on a smaller number of targeted, specific goals. Our Federation has partnered with the schools by creating and implementing the assessment process and by helping to support the implementation of the growth plans. By identifying specific tasks, evidence of success, timeline, individuals involved, and budget, each school’s growth plan has a particular focus and intentionality. The growth plans will also address the ongoing need for targeted professional development in many forms (i.e., coaching, consultation, communities of practice, professional networks, conferences/workshops/courses, site visits to other settings, study seminars, etc.).

As we now have a strong infrastructure in place to help support these programs on their continuum toward educational excellence, the next bridge for us to cross is to better understand and address existing barriers which may be preventing more families from enrolling. From lessons learned, we know that many factors go into a family’s decision regarding the selection of an early childhood education program. Factors such as geographic access, hours of operation, affordability, and quality significantly influence families’ decision-making. Therefore, in tandem with our early childhood education programs, we launched a yearlong mystery shopper program. Mystery shopping is a way for us to gather objective

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feedback from families on sales and customer experience performance in the marketplace. Used by industries providing services for their customers, this process produces both quantitative and qualitative data. Our program is designed to measure how families see the early childhood education programs in web, telephone, and in-person interactions. The data obtained from this study will help to guide our thinking and planning around such areas as marketing, customer service and retention, enrollment conversion, and family engagement. Ultimately, with this data we will be in a more competitive position when serving the educational needs of our families.

The success of a community-based effort relies, in part, on bridging together broader supports and services. To be successful, an initiative has to meet the needs of the community, and sustaining a community-based initiative requires intentional and ongoing effort.

Carolyn Linder has been in the field of Jewish early childhood education for over 30 years. As the director of early childhood education at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, she brings her passion and experience by providing leadership to the Jewish early childhood learning community and helps to develop the highest-quality programs for its youngest learners and their families.

The Sustaining Nature of Jewish Early Childhood EducationLYNDALL MILLER

Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “I would like to go to the fields and glean among the ears of grain, behind someone who may show me kindness.” And [Naomi] replied, “Go, my daughter.”—Megillat Rut, 2:2

I am writing the concluding piece of this Gleanings issue during the end of Sefirat HaOmer, the counting between Passover and Shavuot. On Shavuot, we read the story of Ruth, a woman who left her birth family to find a spiritual parent; who lost her husband, but gained a people; experienced famine yet was brought by love to be the mother of royalty. Ruth was a gleaner, a person who went behind the harvesters to gather what was left, and to make a life out of that sustenance—and what an example she provides for us!

In many ways, this Gleanings—that examines the field of Jewish early childhood education—has been more of a kind of special corner, a peah, left out of the major areas of focus and labor. Those of us who have worked to glean resources, recognition, and appreciation have sometimes had to follow after others. The children in our “field,” after all, are not making decisions about what to do after the celebration of a bar/bat mitzvah, going on a Birthright trip, or finding a life partner. They are learning the power of language, the rewards of relationships, and the wonders of the world, and are completely dependent for their actual survival on others. Their parents are also learning about the power of their presence, the rewards of raising a child, and the challenges of explaining a complex world, and are often dependent upon what we in

ותאמר רות המואביה אל-נעמי אלכה-נא השדה ואלקטה בשבלים אחר אשראמצא-חן בעיניו ותאמר לה לכי בתי

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the Jewish community can offer them. Why see their education, and perhaps even more so their Jewish education, as a major area of cultivation? As these Gleanings articles show, there can be a rich yield from nurturing this field, and from seeing it as a central part of our shared work.

Shellie Dickstein reveals how parents are making important decisions about Jewish education. Her research indicates that, while parents value enrichment for our youngest children (ages birth to two), they approach Jewish enrichment with ambivalence. The reasons for this hesitancy seem to be both that Judaism may be too important—affecting perceptions of their own identity—and that the children are “too young.” The latter is ironic since they are not too young for music, gymnastics, and other kinds of experiences. We know that these parents want their children to have essential physical, emotional, and social skills, yet parents do not yet know that all of these areas can be addressed within a gentle, welcoming Jewish experience. We are indebted to Shellie for her close listening to parents that helps direct our efforts. A gleaning for the bountiful growth of all of Jewish education: listen to and dialogue with families so that the right conditions for everyone’s learning can be provided.

The Jewish Resource Specialist (JRS) project of the Federation of Greater San Francisco addresses this need to be highly responsive to parents and teachers as they explore the ways that they find Judaism meaningful, and relate these ways appropriately to being with children. As Denise Moyes-Schnur describes, the JRS of each school provides information, develops experiences, and is a font of knowledge for those who want more. This program models what can happen when a cohort of individuals in a community collaborate to consider issues in engaging children and parents in Judaism, and then brings both the content and the process back to their individual schools. Relationships are maximized, providing optimal conditions for Jewish engagement to flower. While we can find examples of specialists in other expressions of Jewish education, it is unusual to find such attention given to learners’ “roots.”

The creation of the Shared Communal Goals of Pittsburgh, as relayed by Carolyn Linder, is the result of educators working together across schools to discover both what they consider to be essential characteristics of programs and how each school might express these characteristics. The involvement of parents is a key aspect of the Pittsburgh initiative as well. The foci are quality, engagement, and shared leadership. Jewish education across different age groups in the same institution, never mind across different intuitions, often seems to be happening in separate “plots.” What could cross-fertilize when the entire Jewish educational effort is collaborative in a geographic area?

Anna Hartman presents Chicago as a city with Jewish early childhood education at the center. There are no fewer than five initiatives working as a collaborative ecosystem. The Community Foundation for Jewish Education has originated some of these efforts, and welcomed others. This diverse approach can address the different kinds of hunger for new knowledge and growth throughout the Chicago Jewish early childhood community. In this example, we see collaboration across initiatives as well as across schools in one city, with a strategic plan to examine the synergy between these efforts, which encompass all aspects of Jewish early childhood education from engaging parents to bringing in new teachers to leadership development. How are we cultivating and integrating each other’s ideas across all of Jewish education?

Lisa Farber Miller describes a project addressing parents’ perceptions of Jewish early childhood education in the greater Denver area, looking at the field from a communal perspective. The BUILDing initiative sees the first contact with the family not as a doorway only to an excellent early childhood program, but to a lifelong community. Along with standards of excellence, BUILDing sees itself as a way to reveal and optimize the interpenetrating connections that weave through all aspects of Jewish communal life. Another gleaning that supports the entire enterprise: connect Jewish education to Jewish communal life.

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In their article “Heschel at the Gan,” Bill Robinson and Sonya Shoptaugh explain how early childhood education devotes itself to the seeds we plant across the entire field of potential Jewish learning and life-long engagement. In the very contemplation of children, each person engages in introspection—what will our family life be like? What might Judaism mean to me in this new venture? What do I want it to mean to my own offspring? Parenting requires giving life to values. The seeds for a strong flowering of Jewish life are there; they need tender care, even if they are not readily visible.

Megillat Rut ends, fittingly, with the birth of a child. From the sidelines, from a “corner,” both in her origins and her poverty, Ruth gives us David, a central figure in Jewish tradition, and the line of the future Messiah. The knowledge, practices, and initiative of the field of Jewish early childhood education may play a central role in the future vitality of Jewish life and learning.

Lyndall Miller, MEd, MAJEd, MSEd, is the director of the Jewish Early Childhood Education Leadership Institute (JECELI), a collaborative effort between The Jewish Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College.

Gleanings Editorial Committee

Dr. Barry HoltzTheodore and Florence Baumritter Professor of Jewish Education Dr. Ray LeviDirector, Day School Leadership Training Institute Beth MayerowitzSenior Manager of Communications, The Davidson School Dr. Bill RobinsonDean, The Davidson School Mark S. YoungManaging Director of the Leadership Commons, The Davidson School

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